Bearing critical witness about Robert George’s and NOM’s gay-bashing hatred to the California Fair Political Practices Commission, Ellen Sturtz of Equality California said:

“I come here today, urging you to do your utmost to protect our democracy against those who have contempt for it, us and our laws.”

Robert George’s Family Research Council, aggressively assisted by Robert George’s National Organization For Marriage, long has propagandized — and by that I mean, told lies about — why the Southern Poverty Law Center placed the Family Research Council on its anti-gay hate groups list.

SPLC’s main criteria for putting an anti-gay group on the hate groups list include that a group spreads demonizing lies against gay people.

There is seemingly no end to the demonizing lies that Robert George, FRC and NOM spread against LGBTers.

Here is one example from all of the demonizing lies that Robert George’s FRC spreads against gays:

“One of the primary goals of the homosexual rights movement is to abolish all age of consent laws and to eventually recognize pedophiles as the ‘prophets’ of a new sexual order.”

NOM’s Brian Brown recently appeared on television. A CNN interviewer asked him about that FRC statement:

“Isn’t that hateful in your opinion?”

Brian Brown answered: “No.”

The interviewer had already told the anti-gay bigot Brian Brown — directly– that from that statement, and others like it:

“We . . understand why they were labeled a hate group.”

It was not clear whether the interviewer understands that NOM’s Robert George also is an FRC board member. However that may be, she tried once more with NOM’s Brian Brown.

“It is spewing hate,” she said. She asked if he agrees that it is spewing hate; Brian Brown said “No.”

Something that Robert George, the FRC and NOM appear not yet to have comprehended is that mainstream America recognizes anti-gay hate speech when it hears it. With ever-accelerating rapidity, more and more Americans are understanding that all bullying non-acceptance of LGBTers is rooted in sheer hate and ignorance. Despite Robert George’s, FRC’s and NOM’s best efforts to poison people’s minds against LGBTers, the expansion of understanding, acceptance and support for equality is inexorable.

Still, being as Robert George has not yet apologized for the above example of FRC’s anti-gay hate speech, let us analyze what makes it hate speech.

The sentence identifies “the homosexual rights movement” as the “defendant” of the accusation, but it does not specify who that defendant is, meaning, Robert George/FRC are alleging that all persons involved with “the homosexual rights movement” are guilty of the accusation.

One part of the accusation is that a “primary goal” of “the homosexual rights movement” is “to abolish all age of consent laws.”

By many measures, President Obama, New York Governor Andrew Cuomo and New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg are heroes of “the homosexual rights movement.”

In other words, FRC’s Robert George is standing behind — and staking his personal reputation and honor on — the allegation that Obama, Cuomo and Bloomberg “want to abolish all age of consent laws and to eventually recognize pedophiles as the ‘prophets’ of a new sexual order.”

Yet, Obama, Cuomo and Bloomberg have never in the least advocated abolishing age of consent laws.

So, given Robert George’s group’s anti-gay hate speech lies, it would appear that the Family Research Council’s Robert George’s personal reputation and honor are swirling in the toilet of baseless and defamatory lies where he put them.

Moreover, even if all heterosexual LGBT rights allies are removed from the “defendants” class of Robert George/FRC’s hateful and ridiculous allegation, there is no evidence — admissible in a court or otherwise — that any recognized and established LGBT rights organization seeks to abolish all age of consent laws.

As an attorney, Robert George perhaps understands the trouble he would have demonstrating to a court of law that his hate speech corresponds to documentable facts.

The evil and malicious aims of this Robert George/Family Research Council hate speech are clear; signal to voters that what gay rights advocates really want is to rape children, in order to hate-and-fear-monger voters into voting against gay rights.

By ghastly ironic coincidence, anti-gay hate group leader Robert George also is on the Board of Advisors of The Catholic League, which fights by the Catholic Church’s side, tooth-and-nail, against the lifting of statutes of limitations for prosecution of child rapes.

That is to say, while fraudulently alleging that all gay rights advocates are pedophiles, Robert P. George is on the Board of Advisors of a group very aggressively seeking to deny child rape victims their days in court.

THINK ABOUT THIS

There is something especially egregious and pernicious about a hate group putting the word “research” in its name, as though all the gay-bashing defamation it pumps out could be dignified with what the word “research” most often implies, i.e. academic discipline, respect for facts, and respect for others.

When NOM sponsored an anti-gay hate rally where one of its speakers yelled through a megaphone that homosexuals are “worthy to death,” virtually the entire “homosexual rights movement” called for NOM to apologize.

NOM ignored those calls then, and has never officially apologized.

For instructions on how to report Robert George’s National Organization for Marriage as a hate group, go here.

Tell them that you object to your taxes paying the salary of Robert George, whose groups, the Family Research Council and the National Organization For Marriage, deliberately scapegoat a social minority by spreading demonizing lies against gays.

Tell your Senators and Congresspeople that you do not think it is appropriate for Robert George to be a U.S. government official, being as he has authority over a group that breaks campaign finance laws.

Tell your Senators and Congresspeople that it is absurd and repugnant for Robert George to be a commissioner with the U.S. Commission for International Religious Freedom, given that Robert George tells demonizing lies against gay people in hopes of eventually prohibiting all clergy who wish to marry gay couples from doing so.

New York City-based novelist and freelance writer Scott Rose’s LGBT-interest by-line has appeared on Advocate.com, PoliticusUSA.com, The New York Blade, Queerty.com, Girlfriends and in numerous additional venues. Among his other interests are the arts, boating and yachting, wine and food, travel, poker and dogs. His “Mr. David Cooper’s Happy Suicide” is about a New York City advertising executive assigned to a condom account.

The now infamous Regenerus Study got me curious about the Witherspoon Institute. I've been reviewing on my Facebook page, an essay, "Soft Despotism and Same Sex Marriage" by Seana Sugrue, from one of the Institutes's books which was edited by George and Jean Bethke Elshtain. "The Meaning of Marriage: Family, State, Market, and Morals.” Did you know that same-sex couples who adopt are being "parasitic?" Neither did I.

Here's my shortest comment: We interrupt your regularly scheduled program to bring you this important breaking news!

Homosexuals are not carbon based life forms. I repeat, homosexuals are not carbon based life forms, and are incapable of marriage and raising human children!

We take you now to Professor Seana Sugrue, of Ave Marie University in Ave Marie Florida, who made this momentous discovery. Professor Sugrue…

“The obligations of parenthood are onerous and are felt to be especially so by (entities such as homosexuals) who demand self-gratification. Furthermore, lacking roots in biology, in tradition, in a sense of duty, (homosexual) marriage is not sufficiently resilient to fend off the vicissitudes which the ordinary and extraordinary demands of life place upon all of us….”

If I may break in with a question, Professor…

Of course.

Please tell me that you’re not tenured…Don’t answer. We take you back, with our deepest apologies, to your regularly scheduled program.

Scott_RoseAugust 18, 2012 at 8:01 pm

Thank you for your information about the lying, anti-gay hate organization "The Witherspoon Institute."

David_Cary_HartAugust 18, 2012 at 7:53 pm

The common thread is Opus Dei.

Robert George is a co-founder of Witherspoon which is run by Luis Tellez who is an Opus Dei numerary. Tellez is also on the board of NOM which was also co-founded by George. I would argue that NOM is an Opus Dei affiliate.

I would point out, however, that Opus Dei was unable to thwart marriage equality in their home base of Spain. Indeed, the Spanish Constitution is written to specifically respect the Catholic Church – and they STILL failed.

Witherspoon (Opus Dei) hosts the "official" website for the Regenerus study. It would appear that they got what they paid for. While Witherspoon's financing of the study was fully disclosed to the reviewers, they were unable to appreciate the connections to NOM and NOM's agenda through Robert George. More frustrating is the fact that a Judge in Hawaii uncritically regurgitated Witherspoon material in ruling against equality.

ALL THIS IS RELATIVELY MEANINGLESS! Our task is to get our voters to the polls in November. Even if we can win just one of the marriage contests, it puts us over critical mass. It is the beginning of the end requiring these people to find a new hobby. If we win two of these contests, it is going to put a serious dent in NOM's ability to raise money.

Scott_RoseAugust 18, 2012 at 8:00 pm

I am not sure which facts you refer to where you say that "Witherspoon's financing of the study was fully disclosed to the reviewers;" however, it is documented that the peer reviewers of the Regnerus study had conflicts of interest, including that some had been paid consultants to design the study, and others had long-term personal and professional associations with Regnerus. What this means is that the same people who got paid to booby trap the study against gays, with a cherry picked control group and a test group loaded up with variables, also got to rubber stamp the study for publication. Yes, the peer review process was corrupt, meaning, the study went through no meaningful scientific evaluation to determine whether it was publishable.

David_Cary_HartAugust 18, 2012 at 9:08 pm

I have made a number of phone calls and had a number of email colloquys in reference to this "research."

At the more prestigious journals, the referee process is double-blind; The reviewers don't know who the author is and the author doesn't know who the reviewers are. However, this particular journal is only single blind; The reviewers know who the author is.

In reality, however, there was no Chinese wall at all. Regenerus submitted to this journal because he knew who the reviewers would be. With respect to Witherspoon, that IS fully disclosed (it is in the published article). However, the reviewers did not appreciate the conflicts of interest or chose to ignore them. As you point out, there are apparently other conflicts as well. A complete audit of this debacle will be completed in November with no assurance that the audit will be made public.

Ironically, this "study" does not really say what NOM claims. Moreover, the findings are totally irrelevant to marriage equality. "Gay marriage" does not change the custody of a single child. Married gay couples might adopt more kids and that is probably a good thing since those children already have no birth parents as custodians. Moreover, the children of "traditional marriages" have a 50% probability of being raised by a single parent.

As for the University, they will probably do nothing unless the article is withdrawn by the journal (which is extremely rare). Based on the information available to me, this does not seem to constitute a PROVABLE case of academic malfeasance. We are actually better off if that is the case. The last thing we need is another martyr.

Again, and this is critically important, rebutting the study only creates confusion. The better path is the irrelevancy. Regardless of the status of gay marriage the same hetero couples are going to unite in the same weddings, crank out the same kids and sue for the same divorces while gay couples will continue to adopt parentless children.Marriage equality has no effect on who raises which children.

As my grandmother would say, the whole thing is hochfleisch (sp?) which is Yiddish for chopped meat. Whatever it was it isn't.

Scott_RoseAugust 18, 2012 at 11:39 pm

(Hackfleisch). The "audit" was a sham, and the sham was schemed up by the journal Social Science Research's editor-in-chief James Wright and editorial board member Darren Sherkat. The journal violated its own published Peer Review Policy. That policy says that submissions will be peer reviewed by topic experts — that didn't happen. According to the policy, it normally takes 2 to 3 months for a submission to be peer reviewed. But, in the case of esoteric topics — and gay parents' child outcomes is one — the Peer Review Policy advises authors that they should expect to wait substantially more than 2 to 3 months, because it takes the editor months just to locate topic expert peer reviewers. By contrast, the Regnerus study was submitted on February 1, 2012 and accepted just 5 1/2 weeks later. Some of the peer reviewers were paid study design consultants. The study design was booby trapped against gays, with a cherry picked control group and a test group loaded up with variables. In this connection, it is important to note that Witherspoon first gave Regnerus a $55,000 "planning grant." Only after Witherspoon saw Regnerus's study plan, booby trapped against gays did it arrange for his full known minimum study funding of $785,000. A good Socratic question to pose is "Which are the top ten well-regarded sociological studies that feature a comparison between a cherry picked control group and a test group loaded up with variables?" (No such study would be well-regarded). Scientific and scholarly misconduct do not have to occur through intent in order to be misconduct. An incompetent person who produced an invalid study could be considered guilty of misconduct, for not knowing his professional limitations and seeking appropriate guidance before carrying out what should be professional work. There is some chance that UT — understanding that such organizations as the American Medical Association have analyzed the Regnerus study as scientifically invalid — will have an interest in disassociating itself from Regnerus an his invalid study, as the invalidity of the study cheapens the value of all UT degrees, for as long as UT does not separate itself from the study. A study with a cherry picked control group compared to a test group loaded up with variables is as much of an academic embarrassment as would be a paper "proving" that water is 3 parts oxygen and 5 parts hydrogen. The American Sociological Association should have acted more swiftly, but apparently now is considering how to respond, and in particular, how to respond in the form of amicus briefs. Among the possibilities being considered: the ASA response: "could range from a simple clarification that the Regenerus study does not support the conclusions offered, to a full-blown analysis of the situation for children raised by gay and lesbian couples (along the lines of that published by the American Psychological Association). The ASA also could decide to join in briefs with other groups." You mention that the Regnerus study should be considered irrelevant to law, and that would seem true, and yet, in the case Jackson v. Abercrombie in Hawaii, Regnerus and its "twinned" gay-bashing study by Loren Marks were used and the judge decided against gay rights. Therefore, complacency is dangerous. That is particularly true because the same evil bigots who funded the Regnerus study are authors of the NOM "pledge," which commits the signer, Romney, to appointing only anti-gay bigots as attorneys general and federal and Supreme Court judges. A Republican win this November would likely be a catastrophe for LGBT rights in the United States, but also abroad, as the US would cease to act as a supporter of LGBT rights around the world.